Austin Huff placed third in the 10,000 meters Friday.
LA JOLLA — Austin Huff and Drew Sylvester led the Lumberjacks on the track while Brad Wright contributed in the field for Humboldt State in the first full day of events at the California Collegiate Athletic Association Championships on Friday.
Huff placed third overall and Sylvester finished fourth in the 10,000 meters, the only final on the track Friday. Huff's time was a moderately paced 32 minutes, 25.06 seconds, less than 16 seconds behind winner Brent Handa of Chico State. Sylvester was just behind his teammate in 32:30.26.
Both HSU sophomores raced provisional national qualifying times in the 10,000 earlier this year, Sylvester with a top time of 30:22.47 and Huff with a mark of 30:55.32. They'll attempt the impressive double effort tomorrow when they return to the track in search of more team points in the 5,000 meters.
Wright picked up the first points of the meet for the Lumberjack men, placing fourth overall in the hammer final. His throw of 157 feet, 8 inches matched his season-best in the event. Nick Lohse gave the Jacks his best effort of the spring in the shot put, placing sixth with a throw of 45-3 1/2.
In the women's competition, Heather Snyder put HSU on the scoreboard with a fourth-place finish among the 24 athletes battling in the women's discus. Snyder's best effort was 133-9, earning the Lumberjacks five team points.
In the meet's first competition to conclude, HSU's Helena Silva finished strong in her two final events, the javelin and 800 meters to finish with a two-day total of 4,010 points in the hepathlon. Silva was second in the javelin with a toss of 116-0 and sixth in 800 meters with a time of 2:30.30, leaving her just seven points off her heptathlon personal best and in ninth place overall.
Later in the afternoon Silva in action again, placing fifth in the women's javelin individual event with a throw of 110-6. In the women's long jump, Brittainy Chown placed ninth with a leap of 16-11.
Humboldt State's Tyler Simmons finished his two-day effort in the men's decathlon, completing the event in 10th place with 5,072 points. On Friday he raced the 110 hurdles in 17.62 seconds, threw the discus 84-0, cleared 12-3 1/2 in the pole vault, tossed the javelin 106-2 and timed 4:59.56 in the 1,500 meters.
Friday's preliminaries saw HSU's William Burgess advance to Saturday's final with a time of 15.95 in the men's 110 high hurdles, and Tim Bishop did likewise with a clocking of 56.00 in the 400 hurdles. Sylvia Price made her way into the final of the women's 400 hurdles with a time of 1:09.69 in the preliminaries.